Norway. Neuropeptide origins; study of neuropeptide functions in choanoflagellates
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Biological Sciences
Abstract
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Publications
| Description | Research starting grant |
| Amount | £6,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Gerald Kerkut Charitable Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2024 |
| End | 01/2025 |
| Title | Method for the discovery of neuropeptides |
| Description | NP-HMMer (NeuroPeptide-HMMer) is a free, open-source tool that uses hidden Markov models (HMMs) to identify neuropeptides. Neuropeptides are signaling molecules that control animal behaviour and physiology. How does NP-HMMer work? NP-HMMer uses manually curated HMMs for 46 neuropeptide families It can rapidly and accurately identify neuropeptides It can be used to identify neuropeptides in underexplored invertebrates What has NP-HMMer been used for? Identifying neuropeptides in Drosophila melanogaster, Daphnia pulex, Tribolium castaneum, and Tenebrio molitor Discovering novel neuropeptides in Priapulida and Rotifera Why is NP-HMMer useful? It can help identify neuropeptides on a proteome-wide scale It can help address the challenge of identifying biologically active mature peptides due to their small size It can help identify neuropeptides that existing bioinformatics tools like BLAST may not be able to identify |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | We have discover novel neuropeptides in very well established/studied model organisms, demonstrating that this tool is very powerful. |
| URL | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001664802400159X |
| Description | Choanoflagellates to understand the origin of the nervous system |
| Organisation | University of Bergen |
| Country | Norway |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Thanks to this grant I started collaborating with Dr. Pawel Burkhardt from Norway I have already discussed many experiments with him and we started a project on the deorphanisation of neuropeptides in choanoflagellates. We also started the analysis of channels in this organisms, so far we have managed to deorphanise at least one channel in choanoflagellates, demonstrating a very ancestral origin of neurotransmitter signalling systems. |
| Collaborator Contribution | My collaborator created a mutant for some of the neuropeptides identified in choanoflagellates. |
| Impact | The only output is that we submitted a project proposal to the John Templeton foundation for the study of receptors in these organisms. Unfortunately, we were not funded. |
| Start Year | 2024 |